12 Tech Inventions From Star Wars That Already Exist Today

11. Prosthetics

Again, prosthetic limbs have existed long before A New Hope was released in 1977. Indeed, references to wooden and metal appendages date as far back as the Ancient Egyptians. However, the technology has come across exceedingly well in the past few decades to the point that we're not a million miles away from Luke's seamless replacement hand. The prosthetic arm of The Empire Strikes Back has three main qualities that experts in the field today are striving to perfect; it moves, it feels and it looks the part. You'd currently be hard-pressed to find a replacement hand that can do all of these things but there is pioneering technology in all three fields, meaning it will soon just be a matter of combining it all together. Scottish prosthetics company Touch Bionics have been developing ultra-realistic hands with freckles, hairs and wrinkles. They are able to match the patient's skin tone and apply it to their patented fleshy silicone. Bebionic, in contrast, is a company who might not claim to have the most realistic-looking prosthetics but are at the forefront when it comes to functionality. Provided a patient has retained some level of nervous control within their arm, use of a Bebionic hand allows them to use 14 different types of grip to enable them to do things that would otherwise be completely impossible. As for sensory perception, DARPA in the USA have developed a hand that detects physical contact and transmits the information to the brain via electrodes. Patients can detect touch on their prosthetic fingers with up to 100% accuracy and can even tell when two fingers are touched simultaneously. One can only hope that, over time, experts will be able to combine all three of these fantastic innovations to produce a replacement limb that functions almost as well as a real one.